Monday, September 18, 2006

Drama

There is drama in our household. I can't say much, as Mike will be mad if I reveal things he considers personal to him, but suffice it to say that it has to do with our baby, a blessing, family expectations, institutional policies, and private moral convictions. Don't yet know how this will all turn out...

3 Comments:

We're blessing our baby in sacrament meeting. Guh. I will say, since my parents decided that they need to come for the event and since my dh is more traditional than I am, I'm allowing it to please others. Since I can't participate in the ritual, I'm going to carry the baby to the front and sit right there the whole time. I'm also occassionally 'feeding' my husband ideas on what I would like for him to say in the public blessing. I might propose to him that we give him a private blessing together in our home. I'm not sure how that will go over; when my premature son got his first blessing, dh asked his friend to stand in. It felt very wrong to me that I was excluded from our plea to heaven for our mildly struggling baby.Something disturbing to me is that it's expected that the man will ask others to be in the blessing circle - and my husband has asked someone without consulting me. He treats it like it is no big deal. I'd rather have the circle be small and include family (only my father and bro-in-law will be here since we live away from everyone else) and close friends to both of us ONLY, instead he asks his buddies. What right does this man have to stand in when my child is blessed when I have to watch from the front row?It is a difficult thing to deal with. The other day I was reading the article in the Ensign about the 'Duty to God' award and it dawned on me that I've got to really figure out how I feel about many of the male 'institutions' in the church because I'm going to have to teach my son. Do I support him in doing his 'Duty to God' while his female peers get something silly called a Young Womanhood 'recognition'? But that's another topic altogether. There's so much to think about, so many decisions to make; luckily he's still in his newborn sized onesies, so I've got time. And AMEN to 'nursing sucks!' (sadly both figuratively and literally.)

VirtualM,Thanks for commenting! It's good to know I'm not the only one struggling with this right now.

When you say carry the baby to the front and sit, do you mean up in the stands? Wouldn't that be cool? But also a good statement to walk up and sit in the front row.

My husband and I also plan to figure out what to say together. He is also more traditional than I, but I'm glad he's willing to sit down with me and together compose the blessing.

As I said before, I can't say much since I don't want to risk Mike's wrath, but I will say that I TOTALLY SYMPATHIZE with your desire to be a part of your baby's blessing. It seems incredibly wrong to me that the person who gave birth to the child is excluded from the blessing. I have very strong feelings about this...

Mike and I will also have to figure out what to do with baby E when he gets older. I think we'll probably be ok up until he's 12, but at that point it will be difficult. I hate how different young men and young women (and boys and girls... and women and men) are treated in the church.